Wednesday, April 19, 2017

[NASA HQ News] President Trump Makes Special Long-Distance Call to Record Breaking American Astronaut

April 19, 2017 MEDIA ADVISORY M17-045President Trump Makes Special Long-Distance Call to Record Breaking American Astronaut

Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson of NASA performs investigative troubleshooting in December 2016 on the Combustion Integrated Rack aboard the International Space Station. The rack includes an optics bench, combustion chamber, fuel and oxidizer control, and five different cameras for performing combustion experiments in microgravity.

Credits: NASA

First Daughter Joins International Space Station Call Promoting Women in STEM

President Donald Trump, First Daughter Ivanka Trump, and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins will make a special Earth-to-space call Monday, April 24, from the Oval Office to personally congratulate NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson for her record-breaking stay aboard the International Space Station.

The 20-minute call will air live on NASA Television and stream on the agency's website and Facebook page at 10 a.m. EDT, and will be made available to schools, museums, and other organizations across the nation and globally.

The Department of Education and NASA are working together, on behalf of the White House, to encourage classrooms throughout America to tune-in to this historic event. They also are making available for voluntary use STEM on Station educational materials that may be helpful to further engage students in the classroom. STEM on Station is comprised of education activities that follow astronauts as they demonstrate STEM concepts such as Newton's Laws of Motion, surface tension and advances in technology.

Commander of the station's Expedition 51 crew, Whitson will officially set the U.S. record Monday for most cumulative days in space, surpassing NASA astronaut Jeff Williams' record of 534 days. Additionally, she is the first woman to command the space station twice, and holds the record for most spacewalks conducted by a female astronaut.

Whitson will be joined for President Trump's call by NASA astronaut Jack Fischer, who is scheduled to arrive at the orbiting laboratory Thursday, April 20.